Local farmers reap benefits of crops

July 28, 2005

By Tony Parra

Brent Corbin has been farming wheat for 20 years. He said in most years his wheat fields yield about 12 bushels per acre.
Bouyed by a wet winter, Corbin’s yields tripled this year to about 35 bushels per acre, he said. Corbin harvested 320 acres of wheat and has wheat fields south of Portales.
“This was on the upper end for wheat harvest,” Corbin said.
Wheat farmers throughout the county for the most part enjoyed higher than usual amounts of bushels per acre.
“The farmers that I talked to were averaging around 30 bushels of wheat per acre,” said Randy McCasland, vice president of Garvey Processing Inc. in Portales. “During previous years they’ve averaged 12 bushels per acre.”
McCasland also said a healthy market value for wheat was also good news for are producers. McCasland said they received more than 15.734 million pounds from Rogers Grain and more than 17.162 million pounds from Portales.
“Right now we are at $3.04 (a bushel),” McCasland said. “In 2003, the value dropped to $2.76 a bushel. The market value was at a $3.13 high this year.”
Even hail in June couldn’t temper a solid season.
Leslie Creighton, co-owner of Creighton’s Commodity Corp. with her husband Garland, reported 7.750 million pounds of wheat at the Elida granary.
She said the Creightons have owned the Elida granary since 1997 and have received between 5 to 8 million pounds of wheat each year.
Creighton said, typically, farmers get 15 to 18 bushes of wheat per acre in the Elida area. She said the farmers averaged between 25 to 30 bushels of wheat per acre this harvest season.
“It was a very good year,” Creighton said. “The spring rains really helped out the farmers. One of the farmers got hailed out and he said he would have had 35 to 40 bushels per acre.”